I am on a Vampire kick. This happens every few years. Rightnow I am reading Bood Sucking Fiendsby Christopher Moore. Following that I will read Dead Until Dark, Living Dead in Dallas and Club Dead; all by Charlaine Harris. I know it is cheesy, but I sure do need some cheesy entertainment right now.

Hey Feifer, I've read the Harris Vampire books but forgot all about it until you mentioned them. Someone gave me the first one and I bought the other two at Hastings. Then I loaned them to someone else and didn't get them back. I hate when that happens because I can never remember author's names... I have to go through my bookshelves to jog my memory. Did she write any more after those? They were pretty cheesy but a fun read.

The author of this book is a Pulitzer Prize recipient, so I have high expectations. Here's a blurb that explains the book better than I did:
From the author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning Arab and Jew, a new book that presents a searing, intimate portrait of working American families struggling against insurmountable odds to escape poverty.

As David K. Shipler makes clear in this powerful, humane study, the invisible poor are engaged in the activity most respected in American ideology—hard, honest work. But their version of the American Dream is a nightmare: low-paying, dead-end jobs; the profound failure of government to improve upon decaying housing, health care, and education; the failure of families to break the patterns of child abuse and substance abuse. Shipler exposes the interlocking problems by taking us into the sorrowful, infuriating, courageous lives of the poor—white and black, Asian and Latino, citizens and immigrants. We encounter them every day, for they do jobs essential to the American economy.

We meet drifting farmworkers in North Carolina, exploited garment workers in New Hampshire, illegal immigrants trapped in the steaming kitchens of Los Angeles restaurants, addicts who struggle into productive work from the cruel streets of the nation’s capital—each life another aspect of a confounding, far-reaching urgent national crisis. And unlike most works on poverty, this one delves into the calculations of some employers as well—their razor-thin profits, their anxieties about competition from abroad, their frustrations in finding qualified workers.

This looks good. Let me know what you think of it. I wonder if my library has it? I just canceled my subscription to the Mystery Guild to join the Literary Guild. I go from one to the other and I don't have any freebies coming my way right now.

Just started reading Dashiell Hammet, "Red Harvest". Someone gave me this collection of 5 books of his. I'm a big, big big fan of good ole papa, Ernest Hemingway & this guy who gave me the Dashiell Hammett book said there were similarities in writing style etc so I thought... sure...got everything to gain & nothing to lose, so here I go finally

(I've had the book since New Years....I mean, really...who remembers where you put things when you come home from a New Years eve party??? )

Hey Feifer, I've read the Harris Vampire books but forgot all about it until you mentioned them. Someone gave me the first one and I bought the other two at Hastings. Then I loaned them to someone else and didn't get them back. I hate when that happens because I can never remember author's names... I have to go through my bookshelves to jog my memory. Did she write any more after those? They were pretty cheesy but a fun read.

Okay, now I'm quoting myself. I just checked on Amazon and found Dead to the World came out on May. It's probably not out in paperback, and my library doesn't carry this series so I'll be waiting for awhile to read this one.

I just finished reading some good books. The book club I am in was reading A Confederacy of Dunces. This book is very funny and also very interesting. I also just read Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, I am going to Savannah in a month and everyone said to read it before I go. I also just read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime. This book is very interesting, it is written from the perspective of a young boy with Autism.
All of these books that I read were very interesting, especially the last one!

Okay, now I'm quoting myself. I just checked on Amazon and found Dead to the World came out on May. It's probably not out in paperback, and my library doesn't carry this series so I'll be waiting for awhile to read this one.

Dinahann, check to see if your library borrows from other libraries. Ours does, so I can get books from all over the state.

Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, martini in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WOO HOO what a ride!" -- Steve Parker